


Glorious and Free...Food!

by JBankai89



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Canada, Canadiana, Dinner Party, Food, Gen, Humour, I think I'm funny, JJ is a Habs fan, Low key Yaoi but it's not the main focus, M/M, Rated teen for language, Yurio is petulant af
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-19
Updated: 2016-12-19
Packaged: 2018-09-09 20:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8911372
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JBankai89/pseuds/JBankai89
Summary: JJ can't understand why the other skaters won't associate with him, and the night before the Grand Prix Free Skate he decides to try to make himself more approachable with a dinner party of Canadian foods. (Set between Episode 11 and 12)





	

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: This stupid idea wouldn't leave my brain, so I took a break from Harry Potter Fanfiction to write this. This is probably the first time I've written Anime Fanfiction in about fifteen years, so this is a hella throwback for me XD. Enjoy! Page breaks (~*~) signify a POV switch, Yuri Plisetsky's name spelling will alternate depending on who's POV it is, but I'm fairly certain I managed to keep it from getting too confusing. Yuri Katsuki is Yuuri all the way through.
> 
>  
> 
> **Factual/Grammatical Errors fixed 21/12/2k16!**

Glorious and Free Food

 

JJ paced in his hotel room, arms crossed and his trademark JJ-Style grin in place.

“It's obvious what's happening,” he proclaimed suddenly to his fiancée, “clearly the other skaters are _intimidated_ by me, I just need to make myself more approachable!”

“Oh please JJ,” she said with a tinkling laugh, “you don't need to change to accept them! If they're too dazzled by your greatness, why would you _want_ to lower yourself to their level?”

“A King is only as great as his subjects,” he said confidently, “I can't be an _intimidating_ King, that's not the way to get others to follow me.” He paused, bringing a hand up to his chin as he thought, then snapped his fingers suddenly.

“That's it!” He cried, whirling around to face her, “a dinner party!”

  

~*~

 

Yuri stared at the _thing_ in his hand.

There was no other word for it.

A thing.

A disgusting thing.

“What the _fuck_ is this?”

“Yurio!”

Yuri whipped around, the gilded, red and white invitation still held in his hand, and groaned as he saw the piggy and Victor running towards him. They skidded to a halt, still hand-in-hand, both holding matching invitations to his.

“You got one too, Yurio!” Victor said excitedly, “are you coming? You can sit with us! You can bring Otabek too if you want!”

“Why would I—” Yurio broke off with a sputter, “what do you mean _bring_ Otabek?”

“We just mean he can sit with us at the table,” Yuuri filled in, blinking with confusion. “What do you think we meant?”

Yuri sputtered again with a curse and stormed off to find Otabek, while he threw the invitation to the ground angrily. It fluttered slowly to the floor, still proclaiming its invitation in fancy red writing.

 

_Come one, come all!_

  _You are cordially invited to an evening of Canadian delicacies in the main Banquet Hall,_

_courtesy of JJ and Co._

  _Tonight will be a night to remember!_

 

_Jean-Jacques Leroy_

 

~*~

 

Phichit snapchatted a picture of his invitation to Yuuri with the caption, _did you get one?_ and not two seconds later he received a response in the form of a selfie of Yuuri with Victor already in the hall.

“Awesome!” he proclaimed to himself, and hurried to the elevators.

“Oh, Phichit, you too?”

Phichit skidded to a halt and spun on his heel to see Chris sauntering towards him. He, too, had an invitation in his hand.

“Yeah,” he nodded as he punched the _down_ button. “Do you know what it'll be like?”

“From what I've seen it's pretty similar to American food, but I've never been one to turn down a free meal, so why not, eh?” Chris asked with a wink, and Phichit laughed.

“It should be interesting...I just hope JJ won't be the one doing the cooking!”

  

~*~

  

Yuuri settled in next to Victor on one side of the square table, and looked left and right as the others began to trickle in.

“Ay, Yuuri!”

Yuuri turned, and saw Phichit step in with Chris, his arm raised in an exaggerated wave,

“Hi!” Victor called back, raising his hand in greeting, and Phichit settled himself across from Yuuri while Chris sat next to him.

“Anyone have any idea what JJ plans to feed us?” Chris asked conversationally, while he lifted the beer stein and examined it curiously.

“Maybe he plans to poison us all so that he wins the Grand Prix by default,” Yuuri said with a laugh, but it died in his throat almost at once as he exchanged a nervous look with Phichit. 

“Relax Yuuri,” Victor laughed, “JJ would rather compete the old-fashioned way, he wouldn't poison us on purpose.”

“You mean he might poison us accidentally...?” Phichit asked, his tone caught somewhere between curiosity and worry.

“Um...” Victor trailed off, and turned his gaze to the door, and Yuuri followed his lead, and he spotted Yurio stepping in with Otabek. They both looked sour, as though they'd rather be anywhere else but here.

Fleetingly, Yuuri wondered why Yurio would come at all if he was so adamant about _not_ coming, but the answer came almost at once as JJ himself followed them in. He looked every part the self-proclaimed rockstar in designer jeans, a Red T-shirt with the _Montréal Canadiens_ logo on it, a black leather jacket layered over top, and his sunglasses perched on his head.

“Yurio! Over here!” Victor called, waving his arm, but Yurio merely glared at Victor and pointedly took a seat with Otabek as far from them as they could possibly get, (which wasn't exactly all that far) and they immediately began talking in low voices with one another.

Victor's arm dropped a little as he looked on with confusion, but it was short-lived as JJ spread his arms out in welcome.

“My friends, competitors!” JJ said, grinning at each of them in turn, “I am so happy that you could make it to my little get-together! Tonight we will eat...JJ Style!”

Yuuri bit the inside of his cheek as he listened, and caught Victor's chuckle and Yurio's sputter of annoyance, but he remained silent as their self-proclaimed host continued.

“First on the menu tonight we have appetizers of poutine and oysters, so that you may see the wonders of our delicious bar food, and our more refined food at once!”

Yuuri had no idea what _poutine_ was, but surprisingly, before anyone else had a chance to react, Yurio spoke up.

“You _are_ aware that it's December, right? Emphasis on the R?” He asked, cocking an eyebrow at their host.

“Other way around kitten,” JJ said with a roguish wink, “R-months are okay, the ones without are no-nos for dining on oysters!”

Yurio's face purpled a little at the nickname, but Otabek leant in close and muttered something to the younger skater, and some of the colour faded from his cheeks.

Yuuri exchanged a dubious glance with Phichit. Otabek opened his mouth as though to respond, but Yurio elbowed him with a glare, and he closed his mouth, just as two servers entered the hall, pushing dining carts leaden with dishes before them.

No idea what to expect, Yuuri watched as the waiters offered them each a bottle of beer—a kind he'd never heard of before called _India_ (except for Yurio, who got water).

“India stands for I'll-Never-Drink-India-Again!” JJ proclaimed in a strange accent, and a good-natured laugh, the accent somewhere between a botched British accent and that of a North American Maritimer, and Yuuri exchanged another dubious glance with Phichit. Along with the drink came a platter and a little bowl; the platter held two oysters, and the little bowl contained what looked like a science experiment gone horribly wrong. French fries, cheese curds, and brown gravy, the curds melted slightly and the gravy seemed too hot to eat, if the copious amounts of steam wafting off the stuff was any indication.

“What the hell is this...mess?” Yurio sputtered, and JJ offered him another roguish wink.

“Don't be such a sour puss! It's one of my nation's most prized food items!” JJ said, and Yurio narrowed his eyes at JJ at his reference to Yurio's (unwanted) kitten epithet.

“Well,” Victor began, and transferred his beer to the stein and held it up to Yuuri. “ _Kanpai!_ ”

Laughing, Yuuri mirrored him, and clinked their glasses together.

Slowly the rest of the table followed Victor's lead, and all downed the oysters first, but faltered at the so-called _poutine_.

Again, it was Victor who recovered first, and sunk his fork into the greasy, gravy-soaked mess, and came back with long strings of cheese and a few slightly soggy french fries. He twirled his fork to break the strands of cheese, and then popped his fork's tines into his mouth. His reaction was instantaneous.

“ _Vkusno!_ ”

He took another bite, and he whirled around on JJ who was looking on with a self-satisfied grin.

“Is this the great Canadian secret food? Salt, fat, and starch...it's amazing that Canadians aren't as round as Americans, with food like this!” Victor exclaimed, while the others dug into their own servings. Yuuri found that Victor was right—it _was_ good. Better than good—it was almost as good as _Katsudon_. At the same time, JJ threw his head back and laughed.

“We Canadians tend to have more control than our friends to the south, that's for certain. Make sure next year when you come back to the fold and compete against me in Skate Canada in Montréal you stop at _La Banquise_ ,” he said as he winked and grinned, “that's the best poutine in the city.”

Victor chuckled but didn't answer, and turned back to his own food, and caught Yuuri's eye.

“How do you like it, Yuuri? It's good, no?”

“Yeah, it's good,” Yuuri replied with a smile.

“ _I_ think it's disgusting,” Yurio complained, “too salty, how can you even eat this crap?”

JJ threw his head back and laughed, which just caused Yurio's eyes to narrow into a glare.

“Maybe the next course will be more suited to your tastes, kitten,” JJ said simply.

“ _Stop calling me that!_ ” Yurio yelled across the table, but it caused JJ to only laugh again.

Yuuri smiled at the exchange, and glanced over to Phichit, who had already finished his, and was flicking through the dozen or so photographs he'd already taken that evening. His Instagram was flooded with photos of the group and pseudo-artistic shots of the entrées, while he drank his beer from the bottle, not bothering to transfer it to the stein.

“I guess you liked it?” Yuuri asked with a laugh, and Phichit looked up with a grin.

“Yeah, bit of a weird combination though, don't you think? I mean...french fries and _oysters_?” He asked, and Yuuri laughed with him.

 

The next course came out, and it looked to Yuuri like nothing more than a steak, some sort of strange vegetable in the shape of a spiral, and lobster tails.

“Are these _ferns_?” Yurio demanded from the end of the table, and JJ barked a laugh. Yuuri turned to look, and Yurio was unrolling the weird vegetable to see that they were, indeed, a fern of some kind. “You don't _eat_ ferns, what the hell is wrong with you?”

“They're young ostrich ferns, called fiddleheads. We Canadians in the East eat them during the early summer months, they're delicious!” To prove his point, JJ popped one into his mouth with an exaggerated vocalization of delight, and Yurio's look of disgust became even more pronounced.

“I've had these before,” Chris said conversationally while he pierced one with his fork, “they taste like asparagus, they're not bad.”

“Yurio, you competed in Skate Canada, did you seriously not try _any_ Canadian food while you were out there?” Victor asked with an arched eyebrow, and Yurio scowled.

“I was busy practising—not all of us have time to stuff our faces,” he snapped back, though a faint flush of embarrassment had tinted his cheeks.

“I don't remember Yurio being this grumpy when he trained with us in Japan,” Yuuri whispered softly to Victor, “is he okay?”

“He and JJ don't exactly get along,” Victor replied softly, the corners of his mouth twitching into a smile, “he's probably just dying to get out of here—with Otabek by the look of things.”

“Are they actually together?” Phichit hissed, jumping into the conversation.

“I am two feet away from you three and I can hear everything that you're saying,” Otabek deadpanned, and the trio looked up. The man's face was set blank and expressionless, and the three of them went rather red. Yurio looked caught between anger and embarrassment at being their topic of conversation, but a word from Otabek seemed to calm him, and Phichit commented on it before Yuuri had said a word.

“Check it out— _the cat whisperer_.”

“ _I'm not a fucking cat!_ ” Yurio snapped, and everyone, save Otabek, howled with laughter.

 

Yuuri was already full to bursting when his dishes were taken away, but the dessert was just too bizarre to ignore in favour of bowing out early.

Snow.

Square boxes filled with packed _snow_.

The servers brought with it a steaming pot of hot maple syrup and popsicle sticks, and ladled lines of the hot syrup onto the snow, then set it in front of each of the guests in turn. Yuuri stared, and was relieved that everyone else looked as confused as he did.

“Our final dish this evening is a classic in Quebec—maple taffy! In March it is commonplace for people to go to a _Cabane_ _à_ _Sucre –_ A Sugar Shack, and eat all sorts of things made with maple syrup: spiced meat pie, beans, sausages, ham, even lobster!” He chuckled to himself, “ _This_ is how you eat maple taffy!”

JJ seemed ridiculously proud of himself as he brandished the stick, pressed it to a line of the syrup, and began to roll it. The hot syrup on the snow had hardened a little, and now resembled soft caramel as it clung to the stick in a large glob.

“Canadians are _disgusting_ ,” Yurio muttered, but everyone ignored him as they all took turns mimicking JJ's actions (much to his pleasure) and Yuuri was one of the first to bring the stuff to his mouth.

He _had_ to visit Canada in March.

The intense, maple flavour danced across his tongue as his mouth was filled with the gooey, sweet substance, and next to him Phichit seemed to be having a similar reaction.

“How come Canadians know how to do junk food even better than Americans?” He asked with a moan, “I've never even seen anything like this when we were back in Detroit, did you?”

Yuuri shook his head, his mouth still too full to form a proper sentence.

“Of course! Would we Canadians be anything less than _great_?” JJ cut in, but he was ignored.

  

~*~

 

“Thank God that's over,” Yuri grumbled, his arms crossed and his face set in a scowl as he stalked out of the hall, “all that sugar made my stomach hurt.”

“You didn't seem to hate the main course,” Otabek remarked, arching a brow. “If you knew that you were going to complain the whole time, why did you agree to come?”

“Victor's little piggy would be pathetic and whiny if I didn't show up,” Yuri replied, feeling a blush colour his cheeks as he recalled the conversation between Yuuri, Victor, and Phichit. Did they have _no_ shame? He didn't need a damn Yenta!

“Go straight to sleep, when you get back to your room,” Otabek advised, one hand on Yuri's shoulder, while the other moved to press against his stomach with a wince, though he didn't complain. “Best to sleep all that heavy food before tomorrow.”

“Hm,” Yuri grunted noncommittally, but he had every intention to do just that—after a glass of water or two. All that sugar really _had_ made his stomach hurt.

  

~*~

  

“Wheeew!” Victor stretched his arms above his head, then draped one arm over Yuuri's shoulders. “I'm full! I forgot how heavy Canadian food can be!”

“I think I overdid it with that taffy stuff,” Yuuri replied as he wrapped an arm around Victor's middle, and placed his opposite hand against his stomach, “my stomach's killing me.”

“Me too,” Victor chuckled a bit, “it's so good though, I've only had it once or twice. Come on, some herbal tea to settle our stomachs, then bed!”

  

~*~

  

“The next time I move to an international rink, I'm making sure it's in Canada!” Phichit proclaimed to Chris as they headed back towards the elevators, a wide grin on his face. “Though maybe not the same one that JJ uses,” he amended with a small laugh.

“His ego doesn't leave room for too many other skaters to share a rink with him,” Chris said with a wink and good-natured laugh, “but it was nice of him to put this together. I think I ate too much of that maple stuff though.”

“Oh you too?” Phichit asked, “I'm going to have some herbal tea before I go to sleep, best thing for an upset stomach!”

“I don't know about that,” Chris replied with a laugh, “maybe just some water for me.” He jabbed the _Up_ elevator button.

 

~*~

 

“Success!” JJ cried as he marched with his fiancée from the elevator towards his room.

“They liked it, then?” she asked with a warm smile.

“Now they all know the wonders of Canadian hospitality, they'll be banging down my door for invitations to the next International dinner party I throw, wait and see!” He said proudly, and paused to swipe his key card through the door's slot before he continued. “I may have eaten a little too much though—not a great idea the night before the Free Skate, but a few antacids and I'll be fine.”

“The Rolaids are in the toiletries bag,” she said helpfully, “then you should probably get some rest.”

“And _that's_ why JJ Girls are so much better than those Yuri Angels,” he said with a grin, kissed her once, then made for their luggage.

 

~*~

  

Minako burst into the room she was sharing with Mari, and she jumped up in shock as the doorknob banged loudly off the wall.

“Agh, Minako! I was trying to sleep!” She yelled, “it's barely eight, what the hell are you doing up?”

“ _Look! Look at this!_ ” Minako all but yelled, and shoved her phone in front of Mari's nose without preamble. She squinted, her brain still too foggy from sleep to make out the words, and it took her a moment to translate the _NBC Sports_ English headline into Japanese in her head. When she finally had, she let out a sputter of disbelief.

“Oh come _on._ _All_ of them?!”

 

_GRAND PRIX FREE SKATE EVENT POSTPONED DUE TO ILLNESS_

 

 _In a bizarre turn of events, the Figure Skating Grand Prix Free Skate Event has been postponed due to food poisoning. It has yet to be determined how all six of the skaters managed to come down with the illness on the same day..._  

 

-Fin

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Yurio & JJ are referencing the old saying that says that you're supposed to only eat oysters during months that have an 'R' in it, but it's not really true anymore.  
> Poutine is pronounced pooh-tin not pooh-teen  
> I hope I did all right, this was me just screwing around, but it was fun. When I've finished some of my Harry Potter projects I hope to come back and write more for this fandom ^.^
> 
> JJ's "I'll Never Drink India Again" thing is a reference from comedian Mark Critch.


End file.
